Envy Rots The Bones….

Jerry Kramer is a former professional football player, author, and sports commentator, but best remembered for his 11-year NFL career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive lineman. Kramer was an all-pro five times, and a member of the NFL’s 50th anniversary team in 1969, (all of this from Wikipedia).

Before his election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018 at age 82, Kramer was noted for being a finalist for the Hall of Fame ten times without actually being voted in. And in 2008, he was rated No. 1 in NFL Network’s Top 10 list of players not in the Hall. Kramer was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame on August 4, 2018. At his induction speech, he quoted something his high school coach had told him: “You can if you will”.

While being recognized as a finalist 10 times and still not voted in, in his situation, many people would have become bitter, angry, or upset. And I talk a lot in these messages about how your ‘attitude is everything’, because it really is. How you do anything is how you do everything. And I love how he demonstrated what I would define as the ultimate great attitude despite having his hopes smashed so many times. Kramer graciously said in an interview, “I felt like the National Football League had given me 100 presents in my lifetime and to be upset or angry about one I didn’t get was kind of stupid!”

His attitude illustrates the way we also can safeguard our hearts against the corrosive nature of envy, which is todays verse that says envy “rots the bones”. When we become preoccupied or focused on what we don’t have, we fail to recognize the many things we do because of where we are focused. And within that we miss the peace of God.

Our earthly desires may not be fulfilled as Kramer’s eventually were. Yet we can all have a “heart at peace” when we focus our attention on the many ways God has been generous toward us. No matter what we want but do not have, we can always enjoy the life-giving peace He brings to our lives.

“I choose my reaction to stressful situations, and focus on a heart at peace”

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